ang poets
generally
used the verse form known as 8?
Like-Water-or-Clouds-The-Tang-Dynasty
where the caravans could provision before heading west along the Tarim River system.
Reaching Kashgar at the other end of the Tarim Basin, travellers could then cross the northern edge of the Pamirs via the Terek and other passes to Fergana.
Then along the chain of oases, Samarkand, Bokhara, Merv, and on to Baghdad, the Middle East and Europe.
This was the trade corridor between Rome and the Han Empire.
Itinerant Buddhist monks joined the caravans along the Silk Road bringing their literature and way of life, creating the Buddhist cave complexes at Tun-huang and K'u-ch'e. They could reach Khotan in the Tarim Basin from the Indus valley to the south by crossing the Hindu Kush, over the frozen eighteen thousand-foot heights of the Karakoram Pass. This route along the south of the Tarim Basin between Khotan and Loulan was the path taken by Hs ? an-tsang the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim in 629AD, who spent sixteen years travelling from China through India and returned bringing
71
? copies of key Buddhist texts. His experiences are the theme of one of Chinai? s few long novels, e? The Journey to the Westi? (Xijouyi). Travelling to the south of the Taklamakan, he no doubt experienced the ? ,7,-:7,3 or black hurricane, a dark storm of pebbles and sand lasting for hours. e? At times you hear melancholy wails and pitiful cries, and, between the sight and sounds of the desert, men are confused and lost. So many people die on the way, the work of evil spirits and demons. i?
Manicheanism, Nestorian Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism, and Zoroastrianism entered China along the Silk Road. Envoys from Sassanid Persia, Byzantium, and Arabia had reached Chi? ang-an by the seventh century. And as well as the traffic to the west, there was extensive sea-trade with Japan, and coastal traffic with Korea and South-East Asia. China absorbed immigrants and refugees, Arabs and North Africans, pilgrims from India, Turkoman nomads, Jewish and Muslim merchants. Chi? ang-
72
? ani? s cosmopolitan population imported foreign jewels and silver, horses and textiles, raw materials and ceramics. It copied foreign fashions in clothing and hairstyles, furniture and art-objects, song and dance. New instruments and musical forms changed the Chinese native models. The Uighurs, the Turkomans of Urumqui and Turfan, produced famous wine, sending the ice-packed golden grapes called e? mares teatsi? and the best musicians and dancers of Asia to Chi? ang-an. Wealth and leisure demanded performing artists in dance, mime, music and song, and Asian songs and ballad forms stimulated new poetic patterns in the works of the intellectual elite.
The rich officials and aristocrats of the city also had second homes in the country. To the south east of the capital was the Lanti? ien (Indigo Fields) prefecture where the wealthy had their extensive retreats in the Chungnan (South Mountain) foothills and along the Wang River. Wang Wei the poet painter had a famous estate
73
? here. It was a pleasant place for weary officials to escape to, where they could satisfy the desire to be close to Naturei? s force and beauty amongst relaxing scenery.
Lo-yang the eastern capital, two hundred miles from Chi? ang-an, also had its lakes and palaces, gardens and temples. With a population of three-quarters of a million it stood at the gateway to the great flood plains of the Yellow River. Less well-defended and smaller than Chi? ang-an, but with better water supplies, it was sited on the north bank of the Lo River and south of the Yellow River in Honan province. Built by the Chou it was the Eastern Han capital from 25AD and was sacked along with Chi? ang-an in 311AD though rebuilt in the 490i? s. It too was re- established by the Sui Dynasty. When Empress Wu came to the Ti? ang throne she had a Hall of Light, a Ming-ti? ang built there, to symbolise the power of the dynasty. Three tiered, its lowest tier symbolised the four seasons, the second tier the twelve double hours with a dish-shaped roof
74
? supported by nine dragons, and the highest tier symbolised the twenty-four fortnights of the year.
75
? %? ,3? ? ? ? ? 3,
The Chinese poets give glimpses of the life of Chi? ang-ani? s Imperial Palace. The beauty of Hibiscus Park, with its memories of the Han consorts. The crystal blinds, embroidered curtains, silk and mica screens of the Imperial apartments and terraces. The lakes and pools with their stone ornaments, fish and dragons. Lutes and pipes sounding through the gardens. The flowered skirts, the jade pendants, the gauze and crimson silks, the slender waists and green- painted willow eyebrows, of girls dancing. Wine drinking in the moonlight. Candles and silk fans, kingfisher covers and carved mirrors. Midnight visits and the exchange of poems. Scented robes and letters on coloured paper. Water clocks and chiming bells. Lacquered trays and cups. Gardens of bamboos and cassia, willows and chrysanthemums, orchids and pear trees. Mandarin ducks and lotus flowers are on the
76
? ? waters, orioles are in the trees, butterflies over the grasses. The cry of the phoenix sounds, and eyes are filled with tears. There is a coolness of jade and pearl. There is a rustle of silk over dew- white steps.
Chang HI? ng describes the dancers of Huai- nan. e? Delicate snapping waists, a glow of the lotus flower, shedding crimson flame. Languid hesitant eyes, suddenly blaze with light, skirts fluttering, birds in flight. Gauze sleeves whirl falling snow, weaving the dancing hours, till white powder and willow brows are gone, flushed faces, tangled hair, gathered and held with combs. Gowns of gossamer trail. Perfect the harmony, sound, figures and dress. i? e? Music that falls from the white cloudsi? says Li Po. e? The sound of the flutes drifting from shore to shore. i?
Ti? ang Chinai? s immense influence on Japanese culture echoes in the Tale of Genji, Murasaki Shikibui? s poetic novel set sometime in the Heian period of the ninth and tenth centuries AD. Picking up the theme of the Emperor
77
? captivated by a concubine from the Ti? ang, the Tale of Genji enters a similar world of midnight assignations, neglected women, aesthetic appreciation, and reticent, subtle feeling. e? What men wanted was women not of high station but with true and delicate sensibilities who would hint to them of their feelings through poems and letters as the clouds passed and the blossom and grasses flowered and faded. i? To the Buddhists, Confucians and true Taoists this was a marred world of sensuality and attachment, of foolish intoxication and dangerous refinement. It is a world which the Ti? ang poets move in, and whose passing, with all its faults, they regret. The aesthetic easily slips into the sensual. Beauty appreciated in flowers, rivers, trees and mountains, in moonlight and stars, is also appreciated in women and wine, music and dance. Courtesans and dancing girls are the subject of many delicate poems that often stress loneliness and neglect, misplaced affection and fading beauty. Li Po e? would take his singing
78
? girls Chin-ling and Chao-yang with him on his journeysi? . And e? when he was drunk his page boy Cinnabar would play the Waves of the Blue Oceani? , the tune that Genji danced to in front of the Emperor so that he e? seemed not of this worldi? . It is a beautiful, wasteful, clinging, suspect atmosphere, seductive and delightful, but confusing the mind and absorbing the senses. It entices with the joy of youthful faces and deludes with the transience of passing things.
In Ti? ang China the intoxicating beauty and subsequent neglect of women is a charged theme. A social role based on sexual availability and feminine beauty and talents did not carry the stigma of the West but equally did involve the risks and uncertainties of a precarious life. Concubines of the Emperor or a wealthy lord might see him seldom if at all and be effectively imprisoned within the life of the harem. It was often seen as an immoral practice by sections of the educated classes, being unnatural and dangerous to good government while
79
? condemning the girls to a life of loneliness and neglect. Dancing girls might attract a man of wealth and become entangled only to see him vanish again. Taoism provided a refuge for daughters of high officials or these concubines put away by their lords. Many Taoist nuns were just such women, while others used their education, talents and connections to pursue a life as high-class courtesans.
Sexuality in itself carried no stigma but the predilection of the men for very young girls and the natural intensity of relationships still brought with it all the complexities, confusions and heartbreak of the transient or clandestine liaison. There is ambivalence about the stories of the obsessions of older men with young women. Were they in themselves pernicious relationships that in the case of the Emperor and high officials damaged the State, or could a private love matter more than the ruin of a kingdom?
There were many concubines and courtesans who were famous for their beauty and
80
? their relationships with the powerful, and their situation echoes through later Chinese and Japanese literature so that the names of the one evoke the other. There are therefore many analogues for Yang Kuei-fei. In the Han Dynasty there is the concubine of Emperor Chi? eng-ti, Lady Pan, put aside because of her humble birth and slanders spoken against her, in favour of the consort Fei Yen, or Flying Swallow, who was said to be so light and delicate she could dance on a mani? s palm. Lady Pani? s fate was the subject of many poems including her own. Wang Weii? s e? Three Songs for Lady Pani? is a set of variations on the theme. There is Hsi Shih, the most beautiful of women, legendary consort of King Wu, referred to by Li Po in e? The Roosting Crowsi? . There is Lu-chu, Green Pearl, Shih Chungi? s concubine in the third century AD who sang and danced for him at his famous estate at Golden Vale. There is Wang Chao-ch ? n, concubine of Emperor Y ? an of Han who gave her as wife to a Tartar Khan, and on whose tomb
81
? ? ? ? the grass was always green, or that earlier Chinese princess sent to a Tartar chieftain who yearned e? to be the yellow swan that returns to its homei? . And in the Japanese Tale of Genji who follows e? the way of lovei? there is Genjii? s cluster of consorts, the Akashi Lady, the Lady of the Evening Face, the Safflower Lady, and the child Murasaki, e? the lavender that shares its roots with anotheri? si? . Li Poi? s poems e? Jade Stairs Grievancei? and e? Yearningi? capture the sadness, regret and longing of a frequently disappointed love. Emperor Wu-ti of the Liang Dynasty, he who invited the Buddhist Bodhidarma founder of the Chi? an (Zen) school to China, writes a love poem as if from the woman, as was the poetic convention. e? My dress fragrant still with the perfume you wore. My hand still touching the letter you sent. i?
e? Silk robes rustled as her women moved softly about. i? The wind was rising. i? says the Tale of Genji, e? The perfumed mystery of dark incense drifted over the blinds to mix with the
82
? ? ? ? faint altar incense and the fragrance of his own robes bringing intimations of the Western Paradise. i? e? With the blinds still lifted the delicate scent of the plum blossoms blew in. i?
Courtesans and concubines were often skilled in music. The Ti?
ang poets generally used the verse form known as 8? ? ? , basically five or seven syllable lines in paired couplets with the even lines rhyming. The five- syllable line is made up of two plus three syllables with a caesura or pause (a sigh) between them. The seven-syllable line is made up of four and three. These forms appeared in Chi? ang-an round about the first century AD introduced from the song and dance rhythms of professional girls, possibly from Persia and Central Asia. Li Poi? s e? Yearningi? displays a courtesan who is also a skilled musician.
? The old-style 8? ? ? poems developed into the highly regulated new style verse, the eight-line form with internal balancing and alternation of characters and tones. There were also four line
83
? e? stop-shorti? poems, the ? Q0? ? 1: ballad forms, and traditional songs. Poets were among those who frequented the entertainment quarters of the city like Heng-ti? ang, entering the e? floating worldi? of the e? blue housesi? . The singing and dancing girls, the female musicians and courtesans composed songs and lyrics and sang and played the compositions of the educated men who visited them. Music and poetry were intermingled. In the case of Wang Wei his musicianship may have been on a par with both his poetry and his painting.
84
? ? ,3? ? ? 0?
Wang Wei was born in 699AD in Shensi province. His father was a local official, his mother a member of a distinguished literary family. He and his brother were introduced to society in the Capital when he was about sixteen years old. An early poem e? Words for the Mica Screeni? already shows the acute sensibility and light, quiet touch of the poet and painter. The transparent screen reveals the landscape as though it was a painting made by Nature. Behind the artifice is the reality that obviates the need for artifice. Nature is a better painter than humanity. Through art Nature can be shown and enhanced, but Nature is always beyond art as the greater existence that can only be reached by simplicity, sensitivity and attentiveness. This tension remains throughout Wangi? s work, the desire for expression and realisation
85
? ? ? counterbalanced by the knowledge that Nature should be sufficient. That feeling for the profundity of reality, that renders art superfluous and unnecessary, was a factor in Wangi? s attraction to Buddhism and led to a perpetual dissatisfaction with his artistic achievement that perhaps made him a greater poet and painter.
His lines e? Written on the Wang River Scrolli? acknowledge the e? errori? of any perception of him as purely an artistic surface, and point to the elusiveness of the true self that is beyond art. He was drawn to the pleasures of art and creation, but also understood the Taoist ideal of non- action and a more profound passivity. Equally he is full of feelings, not expressed or inexpressible, below the surface of the poems, while trying to follow the Buddhist path to extinction of desire and self.
This early period also produced the poem on e? Peach Blossom Springi? , a retelling of Ti? ao Chi? ieni? s famous story. Here is the Taoist theme, of a truer life that can be achieved outside or
86
? ? ? beyond the contemporary world, a life that is found and too easily lost again, that is deep in the Yin reality symbolised by peach blossom and clouded woods, by the green stream and bright moon. There, human beings are free of intrusiveness, forget time, achieve simplicity, and become e? Immortalsi? . There, they cultivate their gardens outside the mainstream of events. As against the Confucian ideals of rational and benevolent engagement with the world this is escapism, and the land of Peach Blossom Spring is a e? refugei? from the unacceptable and inhuman world. But from a Taoist or Buddhist perspective it is a transcendence of the inhuman, a deeper existence. Since the goal human beings chase after is merely a transient illusion, then what is it an escape from, what is it an escape to?
In Wangi? s life and that of the other great poets, there is the tension between engagement and disengagement, between living in the suffering and feeling world, and living in the Vortex or the Void, between being a part and
87
? entering the mountains without looking back. From the perspective of the world, the Way is an escape, a turning away from what drives human affairs. From the perspective of the spirit however it is a realisation, an awakening, as in Chi? an (Zen) Buddhism, or a more gradual realisation of and eventual existence in harmony with the Tao, or a progression towards that extinction of the Self that is the Buddhist Nirvana.
When he was twenty-three in 722AD Wang Wei passed the . ? ? 3? 8? ? ? , the e? presented scholari? examination, which was a passport to official service. Introduced by the Sui Dynasty and elaborated by the Ti? ang the Civil Service examinations demanded a comprehensive knowledge of the Confucian Classics and also tested literary ability, including poetic composition. The Han Dynasty had encouraged officials who possessed moral integrity, intellectual ability, and respect for good manners, combined with the courage to speak
88
? out where the good of the State was at stake. It enabled the creation of a talented administrative elite controlled by the Imperial Court and therefore owing it allegiance, and in principle independent of other power-groups and factions. The Sui and Ti? ang strengthened and formalised this approach through the . ? ? 3? 8? ? ? , the e? degree of advanced learningi? that aimed to find and promote men of intellect, integrity and culture.
Officials were therefore practising literary men, who had sufficient leisure to maintain sponsorship and practise of the arts, and whose concentration was on the cultured life (? 03). In the mid eighth century the Ti? ang State Academy Directorate at Chi? ang-an had an enrolment of over two thousand students with a smaller version of the Directorate at Lo-yang. Though it recruited mainly from those with aristocratic backgrounds other candidates recognised as having great potential were also sponsored. The graduates of the system occupied about a seventh of the higher official executive posts
89
? including many of the key ones and formed a Court F? ? 90. Only twenty or thirty . ? ? 3? 8? ? ? students graduated successfully each year from about a thousand candidates, since the examinations demanded not only skill in two forms of composition and extensive ability to quote from the Confucian Classics, but also expert analysis of contemporary administrative and economic problems. Li Po never entered for the examination and Tu Fu did so but failed.
Wang was a man of multifarious talents, and he was immediately appointed to the Court, becoming the Assistant Secretary for Music. However he soon fell foul of the strict adherence to rules which officialdom required, and, through some minor error, was packed off to a lowly post in the provinces. e? Minor officials easily court troublei? he says in a poem, e? so here am I sent out to Chichoui? . He stayed in Shantung for a few years before resigning and returning to Chi? ang- an. He married, and bought his beloved estate in the Chungnan foothills, south of the capital at
90
? Lanti? ien, where he spent time whenever he could throughout his life. e? Leaving Wang Riveri? reveals his attachment to the solitude and spirituality that his retreat there allowed him, as though iti? s reality was an echo of the Peach Blossom Paradise.
His wife died young when he was only thirty, and, though childless, he never remarried. One sad poem seems to refer to this difficult time. He entered public service again at the age of thirty-five. He then alternated his time between his official duties, including a mission to the north west frontier for three years in 737AD when he was thirty-eight (the poem e? Missioni? refers to this), and his life at his Wang River estate where he could paint and write, be musician and scholar. His poetry and painting is filled with the natural landscape and a deeply felt Taoist sympathy.
His poem e? A Replyi? for instance communicates the elusiveness of the mind that is lost in contemplation of natural beauty.
91
? ? ? ? e? Chungnani? expresses his need for solitude and meditation relieved now and then by human companionship. Poems like these reveal the instinctive Taoist, the artist with great aesthetic sensibility whose response to Nature is empathetic. His aspiration is to be part of the natural world, to release the will, create spontaneously, think tranquilly, and merge with the perceived beauty. He became an archetype of the scholar-painter, and his genius allowed him to be appropriated later as the founder of the Southern School of landscape painting, though none of his paintings survive. The Wang River Scroll was particularly famous and showed twenty scenes around his estate with accompanying verses, the scroll form allowing the unrolling of an extended landscape and creating a new mode of depiction. Later landscape painting concentrates on natural harmony often to the exclusion of humankind, the human being represented by tiny figures in the landscape, lost amongst Yin valleys, clouds
92
? ? and rivers, Yang mountains, rocks and pines. Parts of the paint surface are often blank, using the emptiness of the underlying texture to generate a sense of the Tao. e? What we realise is Somethingi? says the Tao Te Ching, e? but it is by using Nothing that we allow it to exist. i? Hsieh Ho, at the end of the fifth century AD stated the six main techniques of painting. The first and most important being . ? ? ? ? ? Q3? 8? 03? ? 9:3? , the achievement of an atmosphere and tone that is fully alive.
The painter should express a depth and clarity of spirit that is in sympathy with the natural world. The painting is created with spontaneity, harmony and vitality. It captures the essence of things. Kuo Hsi in the eleventh century said that painting depended on concentration, seriousness, lightness of spirit, and energy. This is the Taoist inner harmony and spontaneity, combined with a deep intuition of Nature, supported by technique, but ultimately capable of communicating despite blemishes of
93
? technique. Lack of harmony leaves art lifeless despite technical excellence.
e? ?
Itinerant Buddhist monks joined the caravans along the Silk Road bringing their literature and way of life, creating the Buddhist cave complexes at Tun-huang and K'u-ch'e. They could reach Khotan in the Tarim Basin from the Indus valley to the south by crossing the Hindu Kush, over the frozen eighteen thousand-foot heights of the Karakoram Pass. This route along the south of the Tarim Basin between Khotan and Loulan was the path taken by Hs ? an-tsang the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim in 629AD, who spent sixteen years travelling from China through India and returned bringing
71
? copies of key Buddhist texts. His experiences are the theme of one of Chinai? s few long novels, e? The Journey to the Westi? (Xijouyi). Travelling to the south of the Taklamakan, he no doubt experienced the ? ,7,-:7,3 or black hurricane, a dark storm of pebbles and sand lasting for hours. e? At times you hear melancholy wails and pitiful cries, and, between the sight and sounds of the desert, men are confused and lost. So many people die on the way, the work of evil spirits and demons. i?
Manicheanism, Nestorian Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism, and Zoroastrianism entered China along the Silk Road. Envoys from Sassanid Persia, Byzantium, and Arabia had reached Chi? ang-an by the seventh century. And as well as the traffic to the west, there was extensive sea-trade with Japan, and coastal traffic with Korea and South-East Asia. China absorbed immigrants and refugees, Arabs and North Africans, pilgrims from India, Turkoman nomads, Jewish and Muslim merchants. Chi? ang-
72
? ani? s cosmopolitan population imported foreign jewels and silver, horses and textiles, raw materials and ceramics. It copied foreign fashions in clothing and hairstyles, furniture and art-objects, song and dance. New instruments and musical forms changed the Chinese native models. The Uighurs, the Turkomans of Urumqui and Turfan, produced famous wine, sending the ice-packed golden grapes called e? mares teatsi? and the best musicians and dancers of Asia to Chi? ang-an. Wealth and leisure demanded performing artists in dance, mime, music and song, and Asian songs and ballad forms stimulated new poetic patterns in the works of the intellectual elite.
The rich officials and aristocrats of the city also had second homes in the country. To the south east of the capital was the Lanti? ien (Indigo Fields) prefecture where the wealthy had their extensive retreats in the Chungnan (South Mountain) foothills and along the Wang River. Wang Wei the poet painter had a famous estate
73
? here. It was a pleasant place for weary officials to escape to, where they could satisfy the desire to be close to Naturei? s force and beauty amongst relaxing scenery.
Lo-yang the eastern capital, two hundred miles from Chi? ang-an, also had its lakes and palaces, gardens and temples. With a population of three-quarters of a million it stood at the gateway to the great flood plains of the Yellow River. Less well-defended and smaller than Chi? ang-an, but with better water supplies, it was sited on the north bank of the Lo River and south of the Yellow River in Honan province. Built by the Chou it was the Eastern Han capital from 25AD and was sacked along with Chi? ang-an in 311AD though rebuilt in the 490i? s. It too was re- established by the Sui Dynasty. When Empress Wu came to the Ti? ang throne she had a Hall of Light, a Ming-ti? ang built there, to symbolise the power of the dynasty. Three tiered, its lowest tier symbolised the four seasons, the second tier the twelve double hours with a dish-shaped roof
74
? supported by nine dragons, and the highest tier symbolised the twenty-four fortnights of the year.
75
? %? ,3? ? ? ? ? 3,
The Chinese poets give glimpses of the life of Chi? ang-ani? s Imperial Palace. The beauty of Hibiscus Park, with its memories of the Han consorts. The crystal blinds, embroidered curtains, silk and mica screens of the Imperial apartments and terraces. The lakes and pools with their stone ornaments, fish and dragons. Lutes and pipes sounding through the gardens. The flowered skirts, the jade pendants, the gauze and crimson silks, the slender waists and green- painted willow eyebrows, of girls dancing. Wine drinking in the moonlight. Candles and silk fans, kingfisher covers and carved mirrors. Midnight visits and the exchange of poems. Scented robes and letters on coloured paper. Water clocks and chiming bells. Lacquered trays and cups. Gardens of bamboos and cassia, willows and chrysanthemums, orchids and pear trees. Mandarin ducks and lotus flowers are on the
76
? ? waters, orioles are in the trees, butterflies over the grasses. The cry of the phoenix sounds, and eyes are filled with tears. There is a coolness of jade and pearl. There is a rustle of silk over dew- white steps.
Chang HI? ng describes the dancers of Huai- nan. e? Delicate snapping waists, a glow of the lotus flower, shedding crimson flame. Languid hesitant eyes, suddenly blaze with light, skirts fluttering, birds in flight. Gauze sleeves whirl falling snow, weaving the dancing hours, till white powder and willow brows are gone, flushed faces, tangled hair, gathered and held with combs. Gowns of gossamer trail. Perfect the harmony, sound, figures and dress. i? e? Music that falls from the white cloudsi? says Li Po. e? The sound of the flutes drifting from shore to shore. i?
Ti? ang Chinai? s immense influence on Japanese culture echoes in the Tale of Genji, Murasaki Shikibui? s poetic novel set sometime in the Heian period of the ninth and tenth centuries AD. Picking up the theme of the Emperor
77
? captivated by a concubine from the Ti? ang, the Tale of Genji enters a similar world of midnight assignations, neglected women, aesthetic appreciation, and reticent, subtle feeling. e? What men wanted was women not of high station but with true and delicate sensibilities who would hint to them of their feelings through poems and letters as the clouds passed and the blossom and grasses flowered and faded. i? To the Buddhists, Confucians and true Taoists this was a marred world of sensuality and attachment, of foolish intoxication and dangerous refinement. It is a world which the Ti? ang poets move in, and whose passing, with all its faults, they regret. The aesthetic easily slips into the sensual. Beauty appreciated in flowers, rivers, trees and mountains, in moonlight and stars, is also appreciated in women and wine, music and dance. Courtesans and dancing girls are the subject of many delicate poems that often stress loneliness and neglect, misplaced affection and fading beauty. Li Po e? would take his singing
78
? girls Chin-ling and Chao-yang with him on his journeysi? . And e? when he was drunk his page boy Cinnabar would play the Waves of the Blue Oceani? , the tune that Genji danced to in front of the Emperor so that he e? seemed not of this worldi? . It is a beautiful, wasteful, clinging, suspect atmosphere, seductive and delightful, but confusing the mind and absorbing the senses. It entices with the joy of youthful faces and deludes with the transience of passing things.
In Ti? ang China the intoxicating beauty and subsequent neglect of women is a charged theme. A social role based on sexual availability and feminine beauty and talents did not carry the stigma of the West but equally did involve the risks and uncertainties of a precarious life. Concubines of the Emperor or a wealthy lord might see him seldom if at all and be effectively imprisoned within the life of the harem. It was often seen as an immoral practice by sections of the educated classes, being unnatural and dangerous to good government while
79
? condemning the girls to a life of loneliness and neglect. Dancing girls might attract a man of wealth and become entangled only to see him vanish again. Taoism provided a refuge for daughters of high officials or these concubines put away by their lords. Many Taoist nuns were just such women, while others used their education, talents and connections to pursue a life as high-class courtesans.
Sexuality in itself carried no stigma but the predilection of the men for very young girls and the natural intensity of relationships still brought with it all the complexities, confusions and heartbreak of the transient or clandestine liaison. There is ambivalence about the stories of the obsessions of older men with young women. Were they in themselves pernicious relationships that in the case of the Emperor and high officials damaged the State, or could a private love matter more than the ruin of a kingdom?
There were many concubines and courtesans who were famous for their beauty and
80
? their relationships with the powerful, and their situation echoes through later Chinese and Japanese literature so that the names of the one evoke the other. There are therefore many analogues for Yang Kuei-fei. In the Han Dynasty there is the concubine of Emperor Chi? eng-ti, Lady Pan, put aside because of her humble birth and slanders spoken against her, in favour of the consort Fei Yen, or Flying Swallow, who was said to be so light and delicate she could dance on a mani? s palm. Lady Pani? s fate was the subject of many poems including her own. Wang Weii? s e? Three Songs for Lady Pani? is a set of variations on the theme. There is Hsi Shih, the most beautiful of women, legendary consort of King Wu, referred to by Li Po in e? The Roosting Crowsi? . There is Lu-chu, Green Pearl, Shih Chungi? s concubine in the third century AD who sang and danced for him at his famous estate at Golden Vale. There is Wang Chao-ch ? n, concubine of Emperor Y ? an of Han who gave her as wife to a Tartar Khan, and on whose tomb
81
? ? ? ? the grass was always green, or that earlier Chinese princess sent to a Tartar chieftain who yearned e? to be the yellow swan that returns to its homei? . And in the Japanese Tale of Genji who follows e? the way of lovei? there is Genjii? s cluster of consorts, the Akashi Lady, the Lady of the Evening Face, the Safflower Lady, and the child Murasaki, e? the lavender that shares its roots with anotheri? si? . Li Poi? s poems e? Jade Stairs Grievancei? and e? Yearningi? capture the sadness, regret and longing of a frequently disappointed love. Emperor Wu-ti of the Liang Dynasty, he who invited the Buddhist Bodhidarma founder of the Chi? an (Zen) school to China, writes a love poem as if from the woman, as was the poetic convention. e? My dress fragrant still with the perfume you wore. My hand still touching the letter you sent. i?
e? Silk robes rustled as her women moved softly about. i? The wind was rising. i? says the Tale of Genji, e? The perfumed mystery of dark incense drifted over the blinds to mix with the
82
? ? ? ? faint altar incense and the fragrance of his own robes bringing intimations of the Western Paradise. i? e? With the blinds still lifted the delicate scent of the plum blossoms blew in. i?
Courtesans and concubines were often skilled in music. The Ti?
ang poets generally used the verse form known as 8? ? ? , basically five or seven syllable lines in paired couplets with the even lines rhyming. The five- syllable line is made up of two plus three syllables with a caesura or pause (a sigh) between them. The seven-syllable line is made up of four and three. These forms appeared in Chi? ang-an round about the first century AD introduced from the song and dance rhythms of professional girls, possibly from Persia and Central Asia. Li Poi? s e? Yearningi? displays a courtesan who is also a skilled musician.
? The old-style 8? ? ? poems developed into the highly regulated new style verse, the eight-line form with internal balancing and alternation of characters and tones. There were also four line
83
? e? stop-shorti? poems, the ? Q0? ? 1: ballad forms, and traditional songs. Poets were among those who frequented the entertainment quarters of the city like Heng-ti? ang, entering the e? floating worldi? of the e? blue housesi? . The singing and dancing girls, the female musicians and courtesans composed songs and lyrics and sang and played the compositions of the educated men who visited them. Music and poetry were intermingled. In the case of Wang Wei his musicianship may have been on a par with both his poetry and his painting.
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? ? ,3? ? ? 0?
Wang Wei was born in 699AD in Shensi province. His father was a local official, his mother a member of a distinguished literary family. He and his brother were introduced to society in the Capital when he was about sixteen years old. An early poem e? Words for the Mica Screeni? already shows the acute sensibility and light, quiet touch of the poet and painter. The transparent screen reveals the landscape as though it was a painting made by Nature. Behind the artifice is the reality that obviates the need for artifice. Nature is a better painter than humanity. Through art Nature can be shown and enhanced, but Nature is always beyond art as the greater existence that can only be reached by simplicity, sensitivity and attentiveness. This tension remains throughout Wangi? s work, the desire for expression and realisation
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? ? ? counterbalanced by the knowledge that Nature should be sufficient. That feeling for the profundity of reality, that renders art superfluous and unnecessary, was a factor in Wangi? s attraction to Buddhism and led to a perpetual dissatisfaction with his artistic achievement that perhaps made him a greater poet and painter.
His lines e? Written on the Wang River Scrolli? acknowledge the e? errori? of any perception of him as purely an artistic surface, and point to the elusiveness of the true self that is beyond art. He was drawn to the pleasures of art and creation, but also understood the Taoist ideal of non- action and a more profound passivity. Equally he is full of feelings, not expressed or inexpressible, below the surface of the poems, while trying to follow the Buddhist path to extinction of desire and self.
This early period also produced the poem on e? Peach Blossom Springi? , a retelling of Ti? ao Chi? ieni? s famous story. Here is the Taoist theme, of a truer life that can be achieved outside or
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? ? ? beyond the contemporary world, a life that is found and too easily lost again, that is deep in the Yin reality symbolised by peach blossom and clouded woods, by the green stream and bright moon. There, human beings are free of intrusiveness, forget time, achieve simplicity, and become e? Immortalsi? . There, they cultivate their gardens outside the mainstream of events. As against the Confucian ideals of rational and benevolent engagement with the world this is escapism, and the land of Peach Blossom Spring is a e? refugei? from the unacceptable and inhuman world. But from a Taoist or Buddhist perspective it is a transcendence of the inhuman, a deeper existence. Since the goal human beings chase after is merely a transient illusion, then what is it an escape from, what is it an escape to?
In Wangi? s life and that of the other great poets, there is the tension between engagement and disengagement, between living in the suffering and feeling world, and living in the Vortex or the Void, between being a part and
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? entering the mountains without looking back. From the perspective of the world, the Way is an escape, a turning away from what drives human affairs. From the perspective of the spirit however it is a realisation, an awakening, as in Chi? an (Zen) Buddhism, or a more gradual realisation of and eventual existence in harmony with the Tao, or a progression towards that extinction of the Self that is the Buddhist Nirvana.
When he was twenty-three in 722AD Wang Wei passed the . ? ? 3? 8? ? ? , the e? presented scholari? examination, which was a passport to official service. Introduced by the Sui Dynasty and elaborated by the Ti? ang the Civil Service examinations demanded a comprehensive knowledge of the Confucian Classics and also tested literary ability, including poetic composition. The Han Dynasty had encouraged officials who possessed moral integrity, intellectual ability, and respect for good manners, combined with the courage to speak
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? out where the good of the State was at stake. It enabled the creation of a talented administrative elite controlled by the Imperial Court and therefore owing it allegiance, and in principle independent of other power-groups and factions. The Sui and Ti? ang strengthened and formalised this approach through the . ? ? 3? 8? ? ? , the e? degree of advanced learningi? that aimed to find and promote men of intellect, integrity and culture.
Officials were therefore practising literary men, who had sufficient leisure to maintain sponsorship and practise of the arts, and whose concentration was on the cultured life (? 03). In the mid eighth century the Ti? ang State Academy Directorate at Chi? ang-an had an enrolment of over two thousand students with a smaller version of the Directorate at Lo-yang. Though it recruited mainly from those with aristocratic backgrounds other candidates recognised as having great potential were also sponsored. The graduates of the system occupied about a seventh of the higher official executive posts
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? including many of the key ones and formed a Court F? ? 90. Only twenty or thirty . ? ? 3? 8? ? ? students graduated successfully each year from about a thousand candidates, since the examinations demanded not only skill in two forms of composition and extensive ability to quote from the Confucian Classics, but also expert analysis of contemporary administrative and economic problems. Li Po never entered for the examination and Tu Fu did so but failed.
Wang was a man of multifarious talents, and he was immediately appointed to the Court, becoming the Assistant Secretary for Music. However he soon fell foul of the strict adherence to rules which officialdom required, and, through some minor error, was packed off to a lowly post in the provinces. e? Minor officials easily court troublei? he says in a poem, e? so here am I sent out to Chichoui? . He stayed in Shantung for a few years before resigning and returning to Chi? ang- an. He married, and bought his beloved estate in the Chungnan foothills, south of the capital at
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? Lanti? ien, where he spent time whenever he could throughout his life. e? Leaving Wang Riveri? reveals his attachment to the solitude and spirituality that his retreat there allowed him, as though iti? s reality was an echo of the Peach Blossom Paradise.
His wife died young when he was only thirty, and, though childless, he never remarried. One sad poem seems to refer to this difficult time. He entered public service again at the age of thirty-five. He then alternated his time between his official duties, including a mission to the north west frontier for three years in 737AD when he was thirty-eight (the poem e? Missioni? refers to this), and his life at his Wang River estate where he could paint and write, be musician and scholar. His poetry and painting is filled with the natural landscape and a deeply felt Taoist sympathy.
His poem e? A Replyi? for instance communicates the elusiveness of the mind that is lost in contemplation of natural beauty.
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? ? ? ? e? Chungnani? expresses his need for solitude and meditation relieved now and then by human companionship. Poems like these reveal the instinctive Taoist, the artist with great aesthetic sensibility whose response to Nature is empathetic. His aspiration is to be part of the natural world, to release the will, create spontaneously, think tranquilly, and merge with the perceived beauty. He became an archetype of the scholar-painter, and his genius allowed him to be appropriated later as the founder of the Southern School of landscape painting, though none of his paintings survive. The Wang River Scroll was particularly famous and showed twenty scenes around his estate with accompanying verses, the scroll form allowing the unrolling of an extended landscape and creating a new mode of depiction. Later landscape painting concentrates on natural harmony often to the exclusion of humankind, the human being represented by tiny figures in the landscape, lost amongst Yin valleys, clouds
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? ? and rivers, Yang mountains, rocks and pines. Parts of the paint surface are often blank, using the emptiness of the underlying texture to generate a sense of the Tao. e? What we realise is Somethingi? says the Tao Te Ching, e? but it is by using Nothing that we allow it to exist. i? Hsieh Ho, at the end of the fifth century AD stated the six main techniques of painting. The first and most important being . ? ? ? ? ? Q3? 8? 03? ? 9:3? , the achievement of an atmosphere and tone that is fully alive.
The painter should express a depth and clarity of spirit that is in sympathy with the natural world. The painting is created with spontaneity, harmony and vitality. It captures the essence of things. Kuo Hsi in the eleventh century said that painting depended on concentration, seriousness, lightness of spirit, and energy. This is the Taoist inner harmony and spontaneity, combined with a deep intuition of Nature, supported by technique, but ultimately capable of communicating despite blemishes of
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? technique. Lack of harmony leaves art lifeless despite technical excellence.
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